You have no value, You're just another one, Death will quench your hunger

Bush Leading Iraq to peace, freedom and stability

IRAQ: Saddam Provided More Food Than the U.S.

Friday, December 28, 2007
BAQUBA - The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive.

The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008.
[...]
The sanctions, imposed after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait, were described as “genocidal” by Denis Halliday, then UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. Halliday quit his post in protest against the U.S.-backed sanctions.

The sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children, and as many adults, according to the UN. They brought malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicines. Iraqis became nearly completely reliant on food rations for survival.
[...]
The imminent move will affect nearly 10 million people who depend on the rationing system.
[...]
According to an Oxfam International report released in July this year, “60 percent (of Iraqis) currently have access to rations through the government-run Public Distribution System (PDS), down from 96 percent in 2004.”

The report said that “43 percent of Iraqis suffer from absolute poverty,” and that according to some estimates over half the population are now without work. “Children are hit the hardest by the decline in living standards. Child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now.”
[...]
Many fear the food ration cuts can spark unrest. “The government will commit a big mistake, because providing enough food ration could compensate the government’s mistakes in other fields like security,” a local physician told IPS.”

In the 4.5 years since we illegally invaded Iraq, a country that we knew had no WMDs and no connection to 9/11, an invasion that was planned from day 1 of the bush regime, we have had more Iraqi civilians die under our regime than under 20 years of Saddam's.

We have not been able to surpass the food, water, sewage, electricity and even oil production that he maintained for Iraqis under UN sanctions.

All this while we spend about $15 BILLION a month on Iraq. The money would be better spent on butter, not guns. Arming both sides of a civil war while starving the population is a recipe for disaster.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak